Life is one giant problem solving challenge. Anything that helps you get by with less stress has to be a good thing. Here is one Life Hack that brings a ton of entertainment value but when its mixed with a dose of skill and a pinch of luck, it may even be a boost to your hip pocket. This is the sports betting life hack!
Sports Betting is in its infancy in the US but rest assured, it is the rising tide that is coming to your state in the very near future. Its arrival as a legalized form of entertainment presents you with an opportunity to get a grip on it early and catapult yourself from sports fan to successful sports bettor!
Here are 9 life hacks that will help you become a successful sports bettor.
1. Sign up Bonuses
The future of sports betting is here and it’s all mobile! Gone are the days where the only way you could get some action on your favorite sport was to go to a dingy sports bar in downtown Las Vegas and part with cash that you knew was a fair chance of never coming back. Now it’s online and accessible from your cell phone so you can place a bet without breaking stride!
The mobile apps from tried and tested online betting providers like, Fanduel, FoxBet, PointsBet and Draftkings are sleek, easy to use and feature packed to make betting simple and fun for the beginner right through to the full time pro.
Not only is the user experience off the charts, your business is much sort after. As a result, all of the top line mobile sportsbooks offer insane sign up bonuses that are simply too good to miss out on. Matched bets up to several hundred dollars, bonus bets and risk free money are all part and parcel of the gifts that reign down on first time bettors.
Get a piece of that action and you are more than even money to start off your sports betting experience in a profitable way!
School Of Bets has sign up bonuses for all major sportsbooks. Click the banners in this article to unlock the best bonuses in the business!
2. Ongoing Promotions
Not only are the sign up bonuses at mobile sportsbooks sensational, so are the ongoing promotions which keep you interested well after the intal free bets have been run and won. Acquiring your business is huge for sportsbooks, but keeping it is just as important. The big mobile sportsbooks will offer you deals like double winnings, real cash back, bonuses bets for in game achievements and boosted odds on a daily basis. Even if you are less confident about your ability to read a sport and pick a winner these promotions offer value that can make all the difference.
3. Specialize In Just a Few Sports
‘How do you eat an elephant? One mouthful at a time!’
The same goes for betting on sports. If you were that way inclined you could literally be betting on sports 24/7. The best sportsbooks offer odds on major sports from around the globe and as the great Alan Jackson so eloquently put it “Its five o’clock somewhere’.
Of course betting on sports 24/7 is a sure fire way to misstep and for a beginner, while it is tempting, it is not recommended. The best way to get your account rolling is to specialize on just a few sports. Somewhere between 1 and 3 to begin with.
By specializing you begin to work out what bet style you are geared to and how to recognise a good bet from a not so good bet. It also allows you to be more focussed and less rushed when placing wagers.
If you decide to go with more than one sport, it might be an idea to run with sports whose seasons don’t clash entirely. For instance the NFL and MLB have some minor overlap at each end of the season but for the most part they are running at different times of the year. This allows you to become an in season expert, while still being a year round bettor.
4. Sportsbook Social Media Advice and Tips Are Free
Some of the best sources of expert advice, believe it or not, come from the sportsbooks themselves. They have realised that keeping the industry rolling is all about educating bettors on the fine art of sports wagering. You can grab these morsels of information and quickly implement them into your betting.
Over and above this, sportsbooks are also great at offering actual betting tips. Of course nothing is guaranteed in sports betting, but these tips go surprisingly well and most importantly they are free. Better still you can use these tips to analyse how seasoned pros think through their bets when looking for winners. Like all things learning from the best is a quick way to improve at pace.
Twitter and YouTube are the best place to seek out sportsbook advice. Don’t go too crazy, just choose one or two, set up notifications, and follow them with intent.
5. Open Accounts at Multiple Sportsbooks
Ok so for a beginner the thought of having accounts at more than one sportsbook immediately seems too much. After all, telling a non betting friend that you use many sportsbooks seems like an invitation for some kind of gambing addiction intervention. This should not be the case. In fact having the option of using different sportsbooks is actually good practice.
By using more than one sportsbook, you are able to shop around for the best odds on a particular game or event. You are also able to take advantage of all the promotions on offer at each book. While there is some overlap usually sportsbook promotions cover different markets. It makes total sense to be able to make the most of everything on offer.
Another advantage of using multiple sportsbook is the ability to make the most of all the in app features on offer. The user experience differs from book to book, some offer live streaming, others offer great partner deals, while others offer superior live betting functionality including the cash out feature.
6. Learn to Bet Live
Live betting (Betting in-game) refers to wagers that are placed on an event after it has begun. This type of betting is highly entertaining and is a learned skill. Live Betting will become one of the largest bet types across US sports betting as Mobile betting takes hold.
As a beginning bettor, it is worth your while to learn to bet live. Begin by understanding the nuances of a particular sport, recognise how game momentum can shift, the tell tale signs of a change in game style and what role uncontrollables like player injury or weather play and you have the key ingredients to become a star live bettor.
The major sports books offer first class live betting platforms with live scores updating alongside the live odds as well as up to the minute statistical data and analysis. Watch this space because coming very soon to a sportsbook near you will be live streaming of big time sports on the same screen as the live odds. At that point live betting will reveal itself as the giant of sports betting we all suspect it will be. .
7. Let Free Bets Ride on Long Odds
If you bet on sports for any length of time you are going to qualify for bonus or free bets. This manna from heaven is what makes sports bettors lick their lips!
If and when you are presented with a chance to use a bonus bet, shoot for a wager offering decently long odds. Bonus bets come with the caveat that you do not receive the original stake back with your winnings payout. This makes shooting for short priced favorites almost pointless. For instance a $20 bonus bet placed on -150 bet will return you just $13. Maybe useful but not life changing.
The smarter option here is too go for the underdog or maybe even parlay a couple of well selected underdogs. The multiplied odds of the double dog parlay could see you with something in the vicinity of +400 (5.00 decimal) or better and a potential return of $80 plus from your $20 bonus bet.
Likewise you may decide to shoot for a futures market like the US Master golf champion or the NFL Super Bowl winner. This way you have a shot at some longer odds and a good length of time to enjoy the bet. This type of betting also opens up opportunities to hedge your bet to lock in a profit.
Let the Bonus bet ride. Swing for the fences. Cover yourself in glory. You Have nothing to lose when you’re betting with the sportsbook’s money!
8. Learn to Use Cash Out
The cash out feature is a useful addition available at most major sportsbooks. It is closely linked to the live betting odds. Players are offered a point in time cash out figure which they would receive should they settle their bet at that time. As the live odds, and therefore the likelihood of the bet winning or losing fluctuates, so does the cash out figure.
While the cash out figure is not always offering complete value there are times when it can salvage a return from a wager that is heading south fast. If you spot a change in momentum or see something that makes you feel uneasy about your bet you can simply hit the cash out button and lock in a return.
The cash out feature is one of those additions that just wasn’t accessible to bettors prior to the rollout of mobile betting. Knowing how to use it can make you a more successful bettor.
9. Back the Ugly Duckling
All sports have the ugly duckling in their midst. It might be that unfashionable team that plays a mundane boring style of game. It could be the player that prefers a rock solid defense over a highlight reel filled offensive package. While the ugly duckling teams and players may not set social media alight they have an uncanny knack of being well over the odds and winning regularly.
If this is the case, it makes you wonder why they keep being offered at juicy prices?
It really is quite simple. Many sports bettors wrongly use emotion and bias as the basis for their betting decisions. What this does is lead to a favoring of publicly popular teams, the ones that are talked about in the media, or simply the ones that get prime time coverage. We all know sport is a great leveler and the flashy team will receive will always receive the headlines and the flood of betting money. What should never be forgotten is once they enter the field of play this hype means nothing.
On the other hand, the unfashionable team that gets the job done this week, will still have its fair share of doubters next week and as a result they become a worthwhile betting proposition. The secret to finding this ugly duckling team is about knowing the coach. Coaching is a fickle business and there are a few coaches out there, regardless of the sport, who use all their guile and experience to extract maximum performance from their team of average Joes. Back that coach and fade team with all the media hype.
Sometimes sports and sports betting are about winning ugly; and winning ugly pays the bills!
The Game Starts Now!
Sports betting is a fun filled pastime that can return you some useful side income if done right. There is more to it than dumb luck and over time anyone with the right focus and strategy can turn themselves from complete novice to super star sport bettor. Maybe that person is you!
